1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner, and more particularly to a discharge outlet opening and closing apparatus of an air conditioner for preventing foreign objects and the like from entering thereinto through a discharge outlet when the air conditioner is stopped of its operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An air conditioner according to the prior art includes, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a front panel 20 centrally disposed, at a body of an indoor unit, a control unit 30 provided underneath the body 10 in order to suck into and discharge outside the atmospheric air.
The discharge outlet 40 is arranged with a suction grille 41 for supporting a filtering member (not shown) and for forming a beautiful exterior appearance thereof.
Another discharge outlet 50 is mounted at a predetermined spacing with a plurality of vertical wind direction blades 51 and horizontal wind direction blades 52 so as to control wind direction of cold wind supplied therethrough.
However, there is a problem in the air conditioner according to the prior art thus constructed in that foreign objects and the like are infused into an interior of the air conditioner when it is stopped of its operation to thereby result in frequent cleaning thereof.
There is another problem in that the foreign objects infused in the air conditioner are discharged indoors all at once through the discharge outlet 50 when the air conditioner is initially operated, to pollute the room air and to render an unpleasant feeling to a user, thereby deteriorating a cleanness of the room air.
There is still another problem in that an external appearance of the air conditioner looks unbecoming because it is all covered by a vinyl cover or the like lest the foreign objects should be infused into the interior of the air conditioner through the discharge outlet 50 when it is not used for a long time.
In order to overcome the above-mentioned problems, a discharge outlet opening and closing apparatus of an air conditioner is disclosed in Korean Utility model application No.95-13669 (applied on Jun. 16, 1995) by the present application.
The discharge outlet opening and closing apparatus of an air conditioner is mounted, as illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3, with supporting means 60 to an indoor unit body 10, which is in turn coupled to driving means 70 so as to be driven in forward direction by an electric power according to a control signal of a control box 30.
The driving means 70 is coupled to a pinion 80 which receives a power therefrom, thereafter to be rotatatively actuated.
The pinion 80 is meshed with a rack gear 90 which receiver the rotary movement of the pinion 80 to thereafter perform a linear movement.
The rack gear 90 is provided with a door 100 which is vertically actuated by the vertical linear movement thereof and receives a guide from the support means 60 to thereby open and close a discharge outlet 50.
The support means 60 is disposed with a plurality of position detecting sensors 110 for detecting the vertical movement of the door 100.
Meanwhile, the support means 60 is arranged with a support member 61 having a through hole 61a at a predetermined position in order to allow the driving means 70 to be supported thereby.
The support member 61 is mounted (at both ends thereof with a plurality of wind direction vertical blades 51 and wind direction horizontal blades 52 so as to be guidingly supported in a spacing of the discharge outlet 50 formed above the support member 61, and at the same time, a guide member 62 is symmetrically mounted at the support member 61 so as to allow the door 100 to vertically move in front of the support member 61 to thereby open and close the discharge outlet 50.
The support member 61 is rotatively hinged at a central lower front surface thereof to a guide roller 63 so as to prevent the pinion 80 and rack gear 90 from being out of mesh, and, at the same time, to facilitate the rack gear 90 to vertically move according to an electric power of the pinion 80.
The pinion 80 is rotatively fixed to a motor axis 71 of driving means 70 so as to be rotated according to a driving force of the driving means 70.
The rack gear 90 is meshed to the pinion 80 at a bottom end thereof and is supported by the guide roller 63 lest it should be bolted therefrom.
The rack gear 90 is fixed at an upper end thereof by a central upper end of the door 100 and by a plurality of fastening bolts 91.
The door 100 is disposed with a body 101 for covering the discharge outlet 50.
The body 101 is rotatively hinged at both lower and upper ends thereof to rolling members 102 so that the body 101 can line-contact an inner surface of a concave unit 62a formed at the guide member 62 without being horizontally swayed to slide and to vertically move.
At this time, the body 101 is integrally formed at a bottom side thereof with a position-detecting protruder 103 so as to guide an operation of the plurality of position detecting sensors 110 when it is vertically operated.
However, there is a problem in the discharge outlet opening and closing apparatus of an air conditioner according to the prior art thus constructed, in that the door 100 is positioned at the rear of the discharge outlet 50, causing to generate a staired gap at a width surface of the discharge outlet 50 and to disfigure an external appearance thereof when a closed state of the discharge outlet 50 is viewed from the external apperance of the product as illustrated in FIG. 2, because the apparatus is structured such that the rack gear 90 vertically performs a first movement according to meshed cooperation between the pinion 80 and the rack gear 90 when the driving means 70 is driven to simultaneously activate the door 100 fixed at one side thereof and to open and close the discharge outlet 50.